“Bawitdaba da bang a dang diggy diggy diggy said the boogy said up jump the boogy, bawitdaba da bang a dang diggy diggy dig-…what the…?”

“Mom, you’ve gotta stop,” he said, his hand retreating from where he’d just muted my tunes…

I looked around as we pulled into our driveway and saw the neighbor’s kid out in their driveway, sitting in their car, his head thrashing about, presumably, or rather, hopefully, in rhythm to something to which he was listening. “Aw c’mon, D, I’m still coming down from my Kid Rock high—and besides, it ain’t right for a boy to leave his mom hanging mid-diggy.”

He rolled his eyes and opened the car door before I’d even put the thing in park. Before he climbed out, though, his fear of being embarrassed overtook his desire to dash inside the house and thus his hand shot back over the knob of the stereo, guarding the volume control. “Just get out of the car, Mom, and, please, please, I’m begging you, please…don’t sing,” he pleaded as he looked back at the kid next door.

“I can’t believe you’re worried about what Kudzu thinks. You know what he told me the other day when he returned our White Stripes dvd ? He said that Jack White is like the goth version of Johnny Depp. What the hell does that mean? And you know what I said back to him? I said, ‘Actually I think Johnny Depp is the goth version of Johnny Depp.’ He laughed but he still hasn’t figured out what the hell I meant.”

My son’s mouth gaped open and as he slowly recovered from the near-blasphemy I’d just repeated. “He...doesn’t...like...Jack...White?”

“Uh, judging from what he said, my guess is, um, NO.”

He shriveled up his nose then twisted the rearview mirror around so he could get a good look at the kid next door, the one he was beginning to realize was just as much of an embarrassment to humanity as his out-of-tune, far-too-old-to-like-Kid-Rock mother.

“You can’t be serious...he seems so cool.”

“Right, Dylan," I started, my voice steeped in sarcasm. "Frito Pie is out there, sitting in a Camaro, listening to Metallica, and you think he's cool. I've really messed up as a parent, huh?”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that...”

“Well you know what his mom asked me a few weeks ago when she saw me out at the bird feeders? She wanted to know if I knew anyone who had an extra pair of Toby Keith tickets...”

Those words lingered in the air for a few seconds before my son’s body shook violently, presumably in an effort to dispel the awful image I’d provoked in his head.

“What did you say back to her?”

“I lied and told her no. Then I started humming loudly so as to drown her out…but I think she was saying something about how sexy he is.”

His body shook again. More violently this time, though.

And then he climbed out of the car and strolled towards the front porch, humming to himself the tune of “Bawitdaba.”